No comments about Mark It with a Stone: A Moving Account of a Young Boy's Struggle to Survive the Nazi Death Camps.

1 comments about Ponary Diary, 1941-1943: A Bystander's Account of a Mass Murder.

1. I've decided to read this book because I visited Vilnius (Lithuania) last month and there I visited the KGB museum. The museum is very impressive, but where it does show a lot of wrongs of the KGB (when the Soviets were in power in Lith.), it hardly mentions anything at all about the significant role local Lithuanians played in the Holocaust during WW II. I stumbled upon this title by surfing Amazon, and then decided to order it. The 'Ponary Diary' is hard to digest realy. It is an almost casual diary of a Polish journalist who lived in the area of the infamous killing fields of Ponary. What I found so hard to digest, is the matter-of-fact style in which the entries are written. There is no emotion whatsoever, Sakowicz could have been describing the local cattle slaugther-house. But maybe it is a good thing he writes in such a distanced way, so the facts (the things he actually witnessed with his very own eyes) don't get blurred. I'm glad I read this book, but I would not want to read it again. It is that hard to take. (What bothered me also a bit, was the fact that nothing was written by way of an epilogue, of what happened to those sadistic Lithuanian and German mass-murderers. They remain nameless and faceless for the most part).

4 comments about A Match Made in Hell: The Jewish Boy and the Polish Outlaw Who Defied the Nazis.

1. It was indeed a fine match that paired Morris/Moishe/Moniek Goldner, a man with a compelling story to be told, with Larry Stillman, a man who can really tell a story. I have read many books and stories on the Holocaust and its survivors, many by the most celebrated authors in the world. This book compares favorably to the best of them by the best and most famous of these authors.
   
   Everything about Morris is amazing and told with clarity and great style by Mr. Stillman. It is the kind of book you will stay up all night in order to finish. He has clearly done his research carefully to give a flow and continuity to what must have been somewhat disjointed and random series of incidents remembered by Mr. Goldner.
   
   Buy this book for yourself and enjoy the pleasure of sharing it with your dearest friends.



2. Of all the fascinating personal stories coming out of WW II that I've read, A MATCH MADE IN HELL is unquestionably at the top of my list. It's a gripping, nail biting true account of a notorious Polish outlaw and a young Jewish man who is determined to survive long enough to avenge the horrible death of his family at the hands of the Nazi occupiers. Author Larry Stillman has done a magnificent job in researching and writing this book. The young Jewish man survived the war, came to the US and now lives in the Chicago area. A must read.



3. A Match Made In Hell: The Jewish Boy And The Polish Outlaw Who Defied The Nazis is the true story of sixteen year old Moniek Goldner and Polish outlaw Jan Kopec. The two were brought together by chance during the darkest days of World War II and formed a most unlikely partnership. Moniek began as an accomplice to robbery and black market trading, but soon learned enough to join a resistance group -- and that made it possible for him to commit acts of sabotage and directly fight against the Nazis. An important contribution a particular aspect of the struggle against the Nazi holocaust, A Match Made In Hell is a powerful, unusual, and vividly memorable story of desperation in murderous times.



4. This book not only appeals to people who enjoy an action packed story, but also to those interested in issues of morality, personal development, survival, religion, and WWII history. A great book discussion pick!

1 comments about Diario de Ana Frank.

1. Excellent book. I teach mostly Hispanic students. We read the English and Spanish version simultaneously. It really helped them understand. I always tell them it only takes one person to change the world, even a little 14 year old German girl. Now they understand.Well written, clearly translated.

No comments about Renewal of Life: Healing from the Holocaust.

5 comments about The Double Bond: The Life of Primo Levi.

1. If I were to take you on a tour of my home town and tell you the life story of everyone we met (going back several hundred years in instances) you would quickly overload. "Now who is this again?" you would say. Or "why exactly does that matter?"
   So will you find yourself in Ms. Angier's sprawling parade of peripheral characters, all dredged up, it seems, in apology for the blaring fact that all those whose testament would really matter here aren't talking, for whatever reason.
   Imagine your own life story told from the fragments of those who really only knew you in passing - a girl you dated once, a bully, a high school teacher, a distant cousin. All called upon to comment on your reasoning, your justification in certain actions. All treated as expert witnesses. Some, you might be forced to admit, will come painfully close to the truth. Others way off the mark - only laughable speculations. But who, in your absence, could sort out the one from the other.
   A good biographer, you would hope.
   Ms. Angier is quite capable of writing beautifully, as witnessed in her preface to this book. She has a blazing passion for all things Levi. And she is obviously capable of extensive research. Which leaves us with mountains of detail, oh so much detail. And some convincing passages.
   But actually, after several hundred dry, dry pages, I find myself looking, again and again, for Primo. That vitality of soul demonstrated in his own writings.
   And that is, alas, where I am returning. The horses's mouth. With the wheat already separated from the chaff.



2. As awful as current events seem to be, with unsettled questions about who is most likely to die next dominating much of the news, this book takes a look at how a great writer managed, as best he could, for a time. Applying political psychology to figures who assumed some importance in our evaluation of the most catastrophic events in the twentieth century can still be disconcerting, as I myself might be the worst example. Part of the joke of MY VIETNAM WAR JOKE BOOK was that a 19-year-old G.I. grunt in Nam might say things that you would never expect to hear from the kind of genius who survived Auschwitz and wrote about it in the manner of Primo Levi in THE PERIODIC TABLE, which was an American best-seller when it was translated into English.

   Carole Angier seems very English and aiming for an audience at a university level of views, far removed from the concerns of those Americans who need a little more control over what is happening in the world, as expressed in an article in The New York Times of March 31, 2003, of a situation which is assumed to be temporary:

   Eleven days into the American-led war here, the narrow, once fertile crescent of territory that gives Iraq its only outlet to the sea remains a land of insecurity and ambivalence, devoid of the euphoria that American and British soldiers hoped to encounter in southern Iraq.

   People who experienced a sense of euphoria in reading Primo Levi's reflections on life as an understanding of chemical elements are sure to find THE DOUBLE BOND by Carole Angier dismal evidence that Primo Levi's life remained "a land of insecurity and ambivalence," and that the inability to write which marked his final days was primarily a lack of the sense of euphoria that newspaper reporters Marc Santora and Craig S. Smith, writing for the Times, had assumed that Americans would expect for those encountered in great historical events.

   This is a big book with a tremendous index, but most people will find that few of the people listed in the index are familiar to them, though two lines are required for the pages on "Americans," as distinct from the three lines for "America/United States." There are also listings for "Britain" and "England," but no extended discussion of the controversy there, in which David Irving is listed for a single page, on the book, HITLER'S WAR. American and England are such outlying areas in the scope of Levi's concerns that the description of his "barrage of articles" (p. 603) trying to counter Holocaust denial seems obsessed with the French. THE DOUBLE BOND is hardly neutral, but mentions such disconcerting facts as that Louis Darquier de Pellepoix was Vichy's commissioner of Jewish affairs. "Darquier was eighty-five years old and clearly senile, he said; since he himself had sent 70,000 French Jews to their deaths, he was hardly a disinterested party." (p. 603). The word "disinterested" here must primarily mean disinterested in the truth. I just received news that a newsman, Peter Arnett, (I am the face), was fired by an American network for talking in Baghdad on Iraqi TV. The standard applied in his case was hardly whether he was still capable of thinking of interesting things to say, but more along the lines of whether other people ought to be given the opportunity to believe what he was thinking.

   In these interesting times, MY VIETNAM WAR JOKE BOOK is the worst possible point of view because its interest is primarily in laughing. Primo Levi could never have written MY VIETNAM WAR JOKE BOOK, because he did not have the personal interest in pursuing that situation past its most absurd conclusion, that geopolitics could be responsible for the deaths of 3,000,000 Vietnamese without ultimately accepting any responsibility for the fate of the survivors. Levi had math for Europe: "There had been 17 million Jews in Europe in 1939, and 11 million in 1945: where were the missing 6 million?" (p. 603). There might be fewer people in Iraq in a few months than there were a month ago, but Levi is a poor candidate (he's dead, you know) for thinking that anyone could be more disinterested in that than he is.

   On the question of therapeutic value of trying to provide attention to those who need it most, the tangled web in this book is tied to older lives: "from 1978 onwards his depressions were triggered very largely by his mother's decline, and by its consequences. But it was also not true, because neither was natural or external. The truth is that his own relationship with his mother was pathological; and so was the level of care Lucia required them both to give. These together were quite enough to depress him on their own." (p. 602). This is entirely like his relationship to "those who denied the crimes he had devoted his life to recording. They, and they alone, brought out in him absolute intolerance; and a violence of language (`senile', `stupid', `mad') which was to him the essence of the Lager, and normally beyond the pale. The appearance of Faurisson and his ilk was the deepest shock to him: perhaps as deep as the shock of Auschwitz itself. These new Nazis lived in peace and safety, unlike the original ones." (p. 604). Having experienced a bit of shock ourselves, it is not too surprising that some governments have an interest in bringing a bit of shock to Iraq, but hardly like the shock Levi brought when he died in the house where he had been born, Corso Re Umberto 75, "built in the good middle-class areas of Turin around the turn of the century." (p. xxiv). This book honors his life, and is a profound appreciation of the nature and meaning of his death, too.




3. Carole Angier deserves the thanks of anyone seriously interested in the life of this strange and amazing man who helped and continues to help mankind to deal with the massive trauma of World War II and, further, with all attempts since then to kill the soul. She has spent years in attempting to discover him, in assessing what is factual, what can be conjectured, and what is unlikely about this man who was so reticent and whose family and friends are devoted to respecting his privacy and that of his family. However, it is true that a great man belongs to the world too.

   Unfortunately the world will not tolerate the fact that he was human and seems not to want to forgive him for taking his own life, as appears likely, especially in view of his call for help to Rabbi Toaf shortly before his death. Myth does not grow well in the presence of fact, and the facts that Carole Angier has tirelessly gathered will enrich our understanding immeasurably but have disappointed some. This seems true too regarding her altogether modest and to my mind reasonable and well-founded speculations as to his motivations and of the emotional flow of his life. Levi himself saw this coming, said that he was not a "guru" and could not bear the weight of such a role.

   She seems to me to have come to central and moving understandings of his surroundings. One can only stand in awe of the amount of information she has absorbed in her attempt to make the most accurate portrayal of the influences impinging upon him. Her depiction of the Auschwitz environment is as complete as I have ever seen; her understanding of how there could be non-shameful fellowship there which would turn to shame when viewed by the outside world; her understanding of the sad fate of the Samaritan Lorenzo, who could not tolerate his life after Auschwitz, that this is how heroism is, "a historical glory but a personal burden." True for Lorenzo and for Primo Levi as well.

   It has become fashionable in Primo Levi circles to reject absolutely studies of him, as the previous biography by Anissimov, which are in any way flawed. But the truth is we owe a debt of gratitude to her as well; she roughed in the picture and indicated areas that need to be understood. Primo Levi induces in his readers a protective possessiveness; everyone who reads and loves him wants to rescue him from the imperfect perception that has just been promulgated. This is sainthood in formation. But he was not a saint; he was an imperfect and therefore all the more amazing human being.

   Carole Angier has given us a relentlessly factual, moving, and gracefully written portrayal of this complex man. This is the best of biography. She deserves our thanks also for rendering him as we feel he would have liked, in shades of gray, but gray composed of flashes of brilliance mixed with the most horrifying black. Levi was a true Perseus, able to look at the face, see down the throat, of the terrifying Gorgon, able to return and to summon up the courage to tell us the revolting horror. Carole Angier in her remarkable book has helped us to understand the formation of the man who did it, how he could stand it, and what it cost him and those around him.




4. Judging from the wildly differing reviews that have appeared in newspapers in the past few weeks, this book seems to inspire either passionate admiration or something akin to personal rage. It isn't hard to understand why: Angier has written a highly unconventional, imaginative biography, in which she is herself a character at times, and tells us almost as much about what it's like to write a biography as about the life of Primo Levi. She has also dared to use her own intuition -coupled with, and informed by, her scrupulous research and reflection -- to deduce things that Levi, a very private man, did not himself talk about. Finally, she has clearly angered the people who do not want to believe that Levi killed himself; it is impossible to believe, after one has read her, that his fall from the landing of his apartment building in Turin was accidental. Perhaps even more disturbing to those who saw him as some kind of radiantly sane figure is her sorrowful conclusion that he did not do it because, or primarily because, of what he had suffered in Auschwitz.
   The portrait of him that emerges is of a man who was not the secular saint, the avatar of reason, that his readers have supposed, but something greater: a tragically repressed man who struggled with overwhelming depression all his life (except, ironically, as Angier tells us, when he was in Auschwitz), triumphing not so much in his person as in the great books in which he refused to give way to it. It seems a more amazing accomplishment that a deeply troubled, self-doubting, conflicted man should have produced those masterful works of illumination and sanity than if he had simply been the serene figure of his readers' imaginings. And it should come as no surprise to anyone that literature of the high order of Levi's does not come out of an effortlessly serene mind. Angier makes it clear what a conscious artist he really was.

   Though she sometimes hammers her point home rather than allowing the reader to arrive at his own conclusions about the conflicts that lay at the heart of Levi, it seems impossible that anyone will ever come closer to penetrating the mystery of the man.




5. I thought the concept of writing psychobabble books had gone out of style in the 1970s -- that is the concept of a biographer who did not know his/her subject personally, did not interview most of the subject's contemporaries (especially family members) and did not have access to any psychoanalytic records, writing an utterly speculative, fiction-laden account of a "great man's (or woman's)" life. This book by Angier is just such a pile of speculative junk. And poorly written and poorly organized to boot.

   Mind you, I am a fan of "analytical" biography & history. Where the author does not just narrate but attempts to interpret the facts & to tease out conclusions. Angier has gone so much farther than that. Since she speculates without facts and ignores existing facts (which is to say, the material in Primo Levi's own wonderful writings). She turns an interesting man, a fascinating man into a pathological man, who is no more than her (made up) aggregation of psychological complexes.

   I am so disappointed in the NY Times Review of Books for having featured this volume on the cover of their publication this weekend. Angier should pay me for having read it. Instead, I paid her.

   Instead of wasting your money on this junk, buy a complete set of Primo Levi's works [...]. And if you own them already. There is nothing better, I think, than reading the Periodic Table again.

3 comments about Mussolini: The Last 600 Days of L Duce.

1. Ray Moseley does an excellent job in bringing to light the final days of Italy under Mussolini. The Republic of Salo which is formed after the Nazi's free Mussolini from prison is a vague attempt to showcase that Italian people are still in control in Italy. As Moseley shows the Republic had no real power and Mussolini was consulted on almost nothing leaving the German military to run the state. The book jumps around on many topics and discusses Mussolini's stances on a variety of issues from anti-semitism to law and order in the fascist decrees he issued during this republic. The final fall of Mussolini and his capture amongst the mountains of lake Como are very well done and then the final part focuses on various myths related to Mussolini. While the book bounces around it is a great contribution to the last 600 days (594 to be exact) of Mussolini's empire and the tragic fall of Italy's most powerful leader.



2. The best yet on this phase of the war...
   
   ... More extensive review to follow soon.



3. As I listen to the nightly news about our own Governments actions, I find it interesting to read about others. Ours certainly does a bunch of stupid stuff. But then you look at what others do and have to agree with Churchill that a democracy is the worst form of government except that all the other forms are worse.
   
   In this book on the last 600 days of Mussolini, you get a very clear illustration of this point. In his last days, Mussolini was a tyrant, yet at the same time he was utterly miserable in the grip of anger, shame and depression. The German forces that had been supporting were being driven from Italy by the Americans and British.
   
   Mussolini had had the power, as it was said, "he made the trains run on time." But in the end he had failed, and he knew he had failed. He had tried to run a country. And he made some tragic errors. We have so many books on Hitler, it is nice to see that finally we are beginning to see what happened in another aspect of WWII.
   
   I was also amused to see the points of controversy that remain sixty years later. I guess that like the killing of Lincoln and Kennery, and events like Pearl Harbour and the World Trade Center, mysteries will always remain.

5 comments about Into the Arms of Strangers: Stories of the Kindertransport.

1. From the ashes of the WW2 emerged this poignant account around a set of children by then, who tell us their little anecdotes related with the desolation and abandon of their parents since the arrival of Hitler in 1933.
   
   Each one of these little livings has its own specific weight, that allows us to know many unsaid aspects of this unforgettable and horrid episode about the progroms of the Jews.
   
   Totally recommended.



2. The story of the rescue of thousands of Jewish children is told here in good part by eighteen individuals involved in the Kindertransport. The stories are often heartbreaking as most of the children left behind parents and family they were never to see again.
   Most of these people do manage to make new lives for themselves in England. But the legacy of seperation and suffering does not end with them alone but continues even into the next generation. There are stories here of decency and kindness of non- Jews to the Jewish youngsters, but also stories of obtuseness. Behind it all is of course the ' crime of the century' the Nazi cruelty which took millions of innocent lives.
   This book is a valuable work of testimony but of course tells only a small part of the story of the thousands of children who were saved by the 'Kindertransport'.



3. Imagine being 10 years old and having your parents put you on a train to a foreign country! The stories told in Into the Arms of Strangers are heartbreaking AND inspiring. 9 out of 10 of the 10,000 children who were part of the Kindertransport never saw their parents again, but they survived WWII because hundreds of British opened their arms and hearts to them when they arrived as refugees. The experiences of the Kinder are an important lessons for the world, especially in light of recent human rights violations in places like Yugoslavia, Chechnya, and Africa. We should look toward the unselfish example set by the British people as a model of compassion and action during a time of need.
   
   Although it is sometimes difficult to keep track of the individual stories which are told in a timeline fashion, the short summaries at the end of the book help you go back and tie up loose ends.
   
   It is amazing that the Kindertransport stories did not come to public attention until just a few years ago. They are an important part of the whole Holocaust story. The companion DVD is a great teaching tool for middle and high school.



4. This book is based on the memories of several people who were involved in the Kindertransport -- children, organizers, and foster parents. It well-written and easy to read. Also, should one desire, one can follow one individual all the way through the process or read all the accounts based on time.



5. I can't get this book out of my head. It has managed to invade my thoughts on a daily basis and show up in my dreams at night. It is shocking and appalling that such an event could occur - parents having to say goodbye to their little children. I have children of my own, and reading this book made me almost ill with sadness and horror. The heartache and misery endured by the Jewish people is beyond comprehension - it utterly boggles the mind.

   First-person narrative history is perhaps the most interesting history to read; the individual accounts are so emotional that you want to reach into the page and lend comfort. This is an excellent book that deserves a special place in the holocaust library. It should also be read in schools.

No comments about A Jewish doctor in Auschwitz:: The Testimony of Sima Vaisman.

5 comments about In My Brother's Image: Twin Brothers Separated by Faith after the Holocaust.

1. Well written biographical story about the Hungarian experience during the Holocaust and beyond. Very revealing. Fascinating story about two brothers and their different choices.



2. This Book is for everybody to read, it is very interesting and powerful



3. The book, In My Brother's Image, was a book that caught my attention and made me want to keep reading. This book showed this very well. You learn about Gyuri and Miklos', identical twin brothers, life before the war when they were best friends, during the war how religion had torn them apart and the events leading to it, and after how different they had become. Miklos' son Eugene wrote the book, not Gyuri or Miklos. He vicariously wrote it and he makes it seem as though he were right there. The accounts in this book are based upon his father, uncle, aunt, and printed documents from the time such as newspapers and books.
   I, personally, am very into the Holocaust and what happened to families before, during, and after the war so if you are too I definitely think you should consider this book. If you like to see how people can change on a general level this is a good book. If you are like me, liking to learn about the Holocaust or history for that matter, this is an excellent book. Those on grade level 10, 11, and 12 (and on) will be able to understand book because of the language and words used. So once again read this book.



4. I remember reading about this real-life story a number of years before this book was actually published; I still have the clipped article from the Boston Globe in one of my scrapbooks. Then, when I was a student at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst, Mr. Pogany came to our Hillel one Friday night and after services and dinner read from his book and spoke to us about the story behind it. Having met the author makes reading a book even better!
   
   I've very interested in what befell Hungarian Jewry during WWII, possibly because it's so painful and haunting to realise that they were the last nation to be invaded by the Nazis, the final Jewish community in Europe still pretty much fully intact, but for the men who had been drafted into labour battalions or sent off to work camps several years earlier. It's an even more interesting and unique story because the family became Catholics shortly after WWI ended, and they were very devout, so much so that the author's uncle Gyuri eventually became a priest, and his father, Miklós, had seriously contemplated becoming one too. Because of a painful health condition, Gyuri got permission to recover his health in Italy, which was a stroke of luck, since he got out before things really began getting worse and worse, even before the arrival of the Nazis. Though the twins' mother was deported and murdered, the rest of the family did not live in the small town she did, and because they were in Budapest did not suffer the fate of the other Hungarian Jews in smaller towns and cities, who were packed into ghettos and then deported. The Budapest Ghetto wasn't erected until very late in the War, and when Miklós and his wife Muci (also a distant cousin of his) were finally deported, they were "only" taken to Bergen-Belsen as opposed to one of the death camps in Poland like the majority of their Hungarian co-religionists had been.
   
   Because he was tucked away safely in Italy, a place which only lost about 19% of its prewar Jewish population, in the care of the holy mystic Padre Pio, Gyuri was not subject to anything like his twin brother and the rest of their family were. He could never understand why his beloved twin had lost faith in Catholicism and Christianity, how he could go back to Judaism, the religion they'd left as small boys and had never even really been very much of a part of in their early years before they all converted. Many people both then and now have made apologies for the collaboration, either active or through silent complicity, of ordinary citizens in allowing the Shoah to take place, much like Gyuri did, but Miklós and Muci had seen firsthand what had happened to them. Despite nearly thirty years of being a good Catholic, he was not protected from even the "good" labour brigade for converts. In the eyes of the Nazis and ordinary Hungarians, his family were still Jewish. The local parish priest arranged for their mother Gabriella to be taken from the ghetto to his church every day to hear Mass before she was deported, but he still didn't try to hide her or protect her from deportation. This book explores the complex relationship between not only the brothers who were separated by faith but also how the Church failed to protect its members, all members, and to speak out against what was going on, and how something of such a large scale could never have happened without the kind of hatred and collaboration from the common folk that the Poganies saw breaking through the surface after the Nazis and Hungarian fascists came to power.



5. I thought this was a good book and could not put it down. It explores the issues of assimilation among Budapest's Jews, conversion issues, Jewish and Catholic relations, Jesiwh security or lack thereof, Catholic complicity in the Holocaust and the Catholic church setting the stage for millenia that made the Holocaust possible. It also talks of family love and connectedness despite serious philosophical differences. We're discussing this in my book club and it should be very interesting.